Celta overturns Alavés' momentum, wins 2-1 at Balaídos

Celta de Vigo needed barely half an hour of the second half to settle a match that had given them trouble in the first. At Balaídos, Claudio Giráldez's side turned around Alavés' early momentum and ended up winning 2-1, in a contest that was decided between the 52nd and 70th minutes, though Alavés kept pushing back until the very end.

The first half was back and forth, full of fouls and sporadic chances, but no goals. Alavés, in fact, caused the most trouble, with headers from Toni Martínez and Lucas Boyé both saved by the home goalkeeper, and Jonny Otto came close with a shot from outside the box that grazed the top corner right before the break. Celta, for their part, had their own attempts through Ferran Jutglà and Hugo Álvarez, but neither found the net.

The second half changed everything

Almost as soon as the second half began, Celta found their rhythm. In the 52nd minute, Ferran Jutglà finished with his left foot from the center of the box after a through ball from Javi Rodríguez, making it 1-0. The goal seemed to free up the home side, who extended the lead in the 70th minute: Javi Rodríguez, this time on the finishing end, tapped in a cross from Iago Aspas, who had just come on, from point-blank range to make it 2-0.

With the match seemingly settled, Alavés refused to give up. Quique Sánchez Flores' substitutions, bringing on Hugo Novoa, Mariano Díaz and Denis Suárez, injected fresh legs into the visitors' attack, which created several chances from volleys and headers in the closing stretch. The reward came in the 86th minute, when Hugo Novoa curled a left-footed shot into the top corner after a counterattack started by Mariano Díaz, making it a final 2-1. Alavés kept pressing through five minutes of stoppage time, with shots from Lucas Boyé, Ander Guevara and Mariano Díaz, but there was no time left for an equalizer.

A match of contradictory numbers

The statistics paint a curious picture: Alavés dominated possession and fired off far more shots than Celta, but the home side was more clinical when it counted.

That gap in volume also shows up in the expected goals tally calculated after the fact: Alavés generated 1.38 xG compared to Celta's 0.70. In other words, by this measure the visitors created more danger with their shots across the 90 minutes, but it was the home side that knew how to convert its opportunities into goals while the scoreboard still read 0-0.

The preview had pointed to an even matchup: the published projection gave Celta a 43% chance of winning, 31% for a draw and 26% for an Alavés win, with expected goals of 1.37 for the home side and 1.02 for the visitors, a total of 2.39. The final result, with three goals shared between both teams, landed close to that goal projection, and the outcome favored precisely the team the projection had tabbed as the favorite.

What the result means in the standings

Before this match, Celta de Vigo and Alavés arrived practically level in the standings, both with 11 points from nine matches. Celta, however, carried a different goal difference than Alavés despite the same point total, the product of a record of two wins, five draws and two losses, compared to three wins, two draws and four losses for the Vitoria side. With this win, Giráldez's team adds another victory to that tally and leaves Balaídos as the stage for a comeback that was cooked slowly: the goal was hard to find, but once it arrived, there was no stopping the home side until the match was nearly decided.